andy hoffman 01 — Transcript

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1. 0:00why do people reject certain scientific
2. 0:03inclusions
3. 0:04why do they reject for example that
4. 0:06climate change is real something i
5. 0:07study why do some people reject the idea
6. 0:10that coven 19 is real
7. 0:12i want to offer four pieces four ideas
8. 0:15for your consideration on thinking this
9. 0:16through
10. 0:17the first is motivated reasoning and
11. 0:19what that means is that people readily
12. 0:21accept something if it confirms their
13. 0:23worldview
14. 0:24and they will reject it or dismiss it if
15. 0:27it challenges their worldview
16. 0:28on issues that may be totally unrelated
17. 0:30to the science
18. 0:32people may say that climate change is
19. 0:34not real because they do not want to see
20. 0:37constraints on the market controls on
21. 0:39fossil fuel sector
22. 0:42people may have never experienced anyone
23. 0:44who had coven 19 and therefore dismiss
24. 0:46it as a liberal plot
25. 0:48trying to control their lives and so
26. 0:50motivated reasoning plays a big role
27. 0:53in whether people accept or reject the
28. 0:55conclusions of the scientific
29. 0:56institutions
30. 0:57the second question is where do those
31. 0:59filters come from that guide motivated
32. 1:02reasoning
33. 1:03and to a large extent they are formed by
34. 1:05the groups with which we associate
35. 1:07who is part of our tribe for example
36. 1:10maybe a way to think about it uh
37. 1:12um who do you trust for information
38. 1:16uh we'd like to fit with the groups of
39. 1:19the
40. 1:19which we are part it's it's painful it's
41. 1:21hard
42. 1:22to be in dissonance with the the values
43. 1:26of the people we associate with whether
44. 1:27it's at the university
45. 1:29or at your local town hall or in your
46. 1:31business or in your local neighborhood
47. 1:33we tend to fit with the groups with
48. 1:35which we associate
49. 1:37and the second part of that or a piece
50. 1:39of that is who do we look at trusted
51. 1:41sources of information
52. 1:42that represent the values of those
53. 1:43groups there is actually
54. 1:45good scientific social science research
55. 1:48to show
56. 1:49that the more you watch or listen to fox
57. 1:51news the less you believe in climate
58. 1:53change the more you watch or listen to
59. 1:55npr the more you believe in climate
60. 1:57change
61. 1:58our social media does it to it as well
62. 2:00we create a filter bubble around
63. 2:01ourselves
64. 2:03many of you may have unfriended someone
65. 2:05on facebook or twitter because they were
66. 2:07posting things that you didn't agree
67. 2:09with
68. 2:09we create the filter bubble we um
69. 2:13disassociate ourselves with people whose
70. 2:15values our views are different than our
71. 2:17own
72. 2:18social media is doing it to us and so uh
73. 2:21the second
74. 2:22piece uh what's called cultural
75. 2:23cognition starts to play in
76. 2:26the third over time once we connect a
77. 2:28particular position on a scientific
78. 2:30issue
79. 2:31with our social political emotional
80. 2:34identity
81. 2:35it's very hard to break that jonathan
82. 2:37hate
83. 2:38likes to describe that we're faced with
84. 2:40complex scientific information
85. 2:42we approach it more like lawyers than
86. 2:44like scientists
87. 2:46we have this emotional visceral response
88. 2:48the emotions kick in really fast
89. 2:50and our reason is a distant second and
90. 2:53so
91. 2:55our emotion creates a conclusion and our
92. 2:57reason comes in and tries to information
93. 2:59find information to confirm that
94. 3:02conclusion made by our emotions
95. 3:04and so we come to these decisions
96. 3:06quickly and we don't work
97. 3:08often that hard to find disconfirming
98. 3:10information
99. 3:11psychologists like to describe that
100. 3:13we're cognitive misers
101. 3:15we have a certain amount of cognitive
102. 3:17ability we spend it very frugally
103. 3:21the third piece that has to be brought
104. 3:23in this conversation is that there are
105. 3:25powerful political and economic
106. 3:26interests
107. 3:27that are trying to confuse the
108. 3:28conversation over particular issues
109. 3:31whether it's news media or certain
110. 3:33industry sectors
111. 3:35that have brought content into the
112. 3:37conversation in ways
113. 3:39to try and sway the public one way or
114. 3:40another all these things
115. 3:43all four of these items lead to a
116. 3:45conclusion that
117. 3:47when you are trying to communicate
118. 3:48science to a
119. 3:50public that is not ready to hear it
120. 3:53in many ways it's helpful to understand
121. 3:55some of the social science behind
122. 3:57why they reject it and then you can
123. 3:59start to take an approach
124. 4:00to how to overcome it